[Nfbf-l] presidential firsts

Sun Jan 20 01:27:09 UTC 2013

Wow that is fascinating trivia, appropriate for this weekend.

Mark Tardif
Nuclear arms will not hold you.
-----Original Message----- 
From: Sherri
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 5:13 PM
To: nfbf-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Nfbf-l] presidential firsts

This was really interesting. Thought with inauguration day coming up, you 
might appreciate the following trivia.

January Feature

Presidential Precedents

(and other trivia)

By Kathryn Moore on TheAmericanPresident.US

With the start of a new year, and every four years, another presidential 
inauguration, let us look at how each president made history in his own way.

George Washington: First to be inaugurated president, and at his 
swearing-in, he added the phrase, "So help me, God," then he kissed the 
bible. He later became the first president immortalized on a postage stamp 
(in 1847).

Shortest inaugural speech (135 words).

John Adams: First president elected as a political party (Federalist) 
candidate. First president to be defeated for re-election. First to live in 
the White House.

Thomas Jefferson: First president to be inaugurated in Washington, DC. First 
to add territory to the U.S. through treaty (Louisiana Purchase).

James Madison: First president to have previously served as a congressman 
(from Virginia). First wartime president during War of 1812.

James Monroe: First president who ever previously served in two cabinet 
positions -- Secretary of State and Secretary of War. He did this under 
President Madison at the time of the War of 1812. Also was first president 
to ride a steamboat and to wear long pants rather than knee breeches.

John Quincy Adams: First presidential son to become president. He would be 
the only president to serve in the House of Representatives after his 
presidency.

Andrew Jackson: Only president to have previously killed a man in a duel. 
First president of the "common man" and his inauguration reception nearly 
destroyed the White House. Fearing possible personal injury, Jackson fled 
through a back door to escape the hordes of visitors.

Martin Van Buren: First president to be born an American citizen. The rest 
had been born as British subjects.

William Henry Harrison: First president to die in office. He was president 
for only 31 days. Longest inaugural speech (10,000 words).

John Tyler: First vice president to move up on death of president. First to 
have his veto overridden. He was the first whose wife died while he was 
president and then he became the first president to marry while in office.

James K. Polk: First president whose inauguration was covered by telegraph. 
First president not to seek re-election.

Zachary Taylor: President whose death allowed the passage of the Compromise 
of 1850. He died 16 months into his term from possible gastroenteritis after 
eating milk and cherries on July 4. His eldest daughter Sarah was the bride 
of future Confederate president Jefferson Davis, but she died of malaria 
after only three months of marriage.

Millard Fillmore: His wife Abigail was the first to set up a library in the 
White House.

Franklin Pierce: First president to "affirm" rather than swear the oath of 
office. He placed his hand upon a law book rather than a bible. He was the 
first to give his inaugural speech without notes. He was the youngest 
president up to that time at age 48.

James Buchanan: Only president never to have married.

Abraham Lincoln: First president born outside the original 13 states. He was 
born in Kentucky. He was the first president slain by an assassin.

Andrew Johnson: First president to be impeached. He remained president by a 
single vote.

Ulysses S. Grant: First military commander since George Washington to be 
awarded title "General of the Army of the United States." First former 
president to visit Russia, Japan, Thailand, Egypt, and meet Queen Victoria. 
First presidential memoirs, which were published after his death by friend, 
Mark Twain.

Rutherford B. Hayes: First president to visit the west coast (California) 
while in office. He and his wife banned alcoholic drinks from the White 
House, giving her the title "Lemonade Lucy." They also started the annual 
Easter egg roll on the White House lawn.

James A. Garfield: First left-handed president but taught himself to be 
ambidextrous; sometimes he astounded friends by writing Latin with one hand 
and Greek with the other. Only president to have been serving in House of 
Representatives when he won election as president. Second president to be 
assassinated.

Chester A. Arthur: First president to be sworn in at his New York City home. 
This happened upon the death of President Garfield who had been shot two 
months earlier and died September 19, 1881. (Arthur was sworn in again two 
days later by the Chief Justice when Arthur returned to Washington.)

Grover Cleveland: Only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. Only 
president to wed in the White House. He wed twenty-one-year-old Frances 
Folsom on June 2, 1886, and the Marine Band with John Philip Sousa 
conducting, provided the music. The president was forty-nine.

Benjamin Harrison: First president to install electricity in the White 
House, but he was afraid to touch the switches so he ordered the staff to do 
so. Last president to have a beard. Only grandson of a former president 
(William Henry Harrison) to become president.

William McKinley: Last Civil War veteran elected president. First 
inauguration recorded by a movie camera. First president to ride in an 
automobile. Third president to be assassinated.

Theodore Roosevelt: Youngest president at the age of forty-three. First 
president to ride in an airplane and a submarine. First president to travel 
overseas while in office; he visited Panama to inspect the building of the 
Panama Canal. First president to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

William H. Taft: First president to be accompanied by his wife on ride to 
capitol for his swearing-in ceremony. First president to have an official 
White House automobile. First president to throw the first pitch to start 
the baseball season. Only president to serve later on the U.S. Supreme Court 
as its chief justice.

Woodrow Wilson: First president to cross the Atlantic Ocean while in office. 
He traveled to France where he helped negotiate the Treaty of Versailles 
after World War I. First president to be buried in Washington, DC.

Second to win Nobel Peace Prize.

Warren G. Harding: First newspaper publisher to be elected president. First 
to have election results broadcast over the radio. He was also the first 
president to speak on the radio. First president to visit Alaska and Canada.

Calvin Coolidge: Only president to be sworn in by his father. (Harding had 
died and when Coolidge was notified while visiting his father in Vermont, 
John Coolidge, the local justice of the peace, swore in his son.) First 
president to light the national Christmas tree.

Herbert Hoover: First president born west of the Mississippi River (Iowa). 
First president to have a telephone in his office.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Only president elected to four terms (although he 
died 3 months into his last term). First president inaugurated on January 20 
with the change made by the 20th amendment. Only president who had suffered 
from polio and required a wheelchair. First president to appear on 
television. First to appoint a woman to a cabinet position (Frances Perkins, 
Secretary of Labor). First to have a presidential plane.

Harry S. Truman: First president to take office during a war (World War II). 
First to have his inauguration televised. First president to have a 
television in the White House.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: First president to preside over 50 states (Alaska was 
added in 1959; Hawaii in 1960). First president who had a pilot's license 
and first to use a helicopter. Only president to win an Emmy award in 
recognition of his use of television. Only president who served in both 
World Wars.

John F. Kennedy: First president to be born in the twentieth century and 
only Catholic president. First former Boy Scout to become president. First 
president who had served on active duty in the U.S. Navy. First president to 
hold a news conference. Only president to appoint his brother to a cabinet 
position (Robert, Attorney General).

Lyndon B. Johnson: Only vice president to be an eyewitness to president's 
assassination. Only president sworn in by a woman and on an airplane (Judge 
Sarah Hughes swore him in aboard Air Force One in Dallas, Texas). First 
president to appoint an African American to the Supreme Court (Thurgood 
Marshall).

Richard M. Nixon: First president to travel to China. First president to 
visit all 50 states. Only president to resign from office (August 9, 1974).

Gerald R. Ford: Only president to take office who was not elected as either 
president or vice president (had been appointed vice president by President 
Nixon after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned). Only president to have 
been recruited in college by two professional football teams -- Chicago 
Bears and Green Bay Packers.

Jimmy Carter: First president elected from the Deep South after the Civil 
War First president born in a hospital. First president to send his mother 
overseas on a diplomatic mission. Third to win Nobel Peace Prize (20 years 
after his presidency).

Ronald Reagan: Only president to have previously been a movie actor. First 
president to have been divorced and a former labor union president. Oldest 
president in U.S. history -- when he left office in 1989, he was 77 years 
old. First president to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court (Sandra Day 
O'Connor). Coldest inauguration day on record: 7º F.

George H. W. Bush: Was youngest Navy pilot in World War II. Last president 
to have had previous combat experience. Only president who also served as 
head of the CIA.

William J. Clinton: First inauguration broadcast live on the internet. Only 
president to have been a Rhodes scholar. First Democratic president to win 
re-election since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

George W. Bush: Only president whose election was determined by a U.S. 
Supreme Court decision. Only president who formerly owned part of a baseball 
team (Texas Rangers). Only president to have graduated from Harvard with an 
M.B.A.

Barack H. Obama: First African American elected president. Fourth to win 
Nobel Peace Prize.

Sherri Brun
flmom2006 at gmail.com
"Don't give up something you want forever for something you want only for 
now!"
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